Monday, February 11, 2008

I skipped the Grammys last night, recording them on my DVR in case anything interesting happened (so far, from what I've heard, I didn't miss much). Instead, I decided to watch the BAFTAs (the British equivalent of the Oscars) and learned a few things from those crazy Brits:

1. Jonathan Ross' is Well Loved (and it's so mysterious to me) - Ross hosted the event and is one of the biggest talk show host in England. He also has a serious speech impediment (he has the thing little kids have when they can't say the letter "R"). It's so bizarre, but that's the thing about the Brits. You don't have to be particularly attractive or super thin or apparently have the ability to speak clearly to be famous and successful. It's actually pretty awesome when you think about it.

2. Sienna Miller is Still a Rising Star - Sienna was up for the Rising Star Award (and lost to Shia LaBeouf). Her star has been "rising" for, like, 10 years. I think it's about as high as it's gonna go. She will be "the pretty girl Jude Law cheated on with the nanny" for the rest of her life. Man that sucks.

3. The Bourne Ultimatum is an English Movie - I had no idea. Nominated for Best British Film, I knew it was directed by a Brit, but I thought it was an all America thriller. Just goes to show, we don't even make the best action movies anymore.

4. Diablo Cody's Life is Awesome - Riding high on her Juno script, Cody won Best Original Screenplay, but I'm more jealous because she was at the ceremony with Edgar Wright (who made Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). If they are dating, her life is just unfair. Guess I should start cracking away at my off-beat teenager coming of age comedy so I can date the cute film nerds.

5. Stallone is Still Huge in th UK - Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the presenters were a who's who of, like, 15 years ago. Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Cuba Gooding Jr....um, 1993 called and they want their awards presenters back (and 2005 called and they want their joke back).

As far as awards go, it was pretty standard: Daniel Day Lewis won Best Actor (how much does it suck for someone like Viggo Mortensen, who gave an amazing performance, but it happened to be the same year as someone who gave the performance of a lifetime and he has to go to all these stupid awards shows knowing he will lose?), Marion Cotillard won Best Actress (and seems poised to upset Julie Christie at the Oscars), Javier Bardem won BSA and Tilda Swinton took the award for BSA. Atonement won Best Picture (it was the most English afterall) and the Coen Brothers won Best Director. Some surprises...some not so much.

American awards shows could take a page from the BAFTAs - The ceremony was fun and short, the nomination packages had cool behind the scenes footage and Daniel Radcliffe was in the front row with his mum. Absolutely lovely.